Book Review
Dec. 31st, 2020 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Calculating Stars
by Mary Robinette Kowal
This alternate history of the space race is told from the point of view of Elma York, a NASA computer and former WASP pilot. After a meteorite obliterates part of the east coast and kicks off a process of rapid catastrophic climate change, the space race kicks into high gear because humanity needs to establish off-world colonies before Earth becomes uninhabitable. Elma's work, and that of her husband, an engineer, involves her very directly in the development of space travel. As her desire to participate more directly in the missions grows, Elma soon begins to question why only men are allowed to become astronauts. Her drive to become an astronaut has the force to overcome both internal and external hurdles.
I really enjoyed this book. Space exploration is already such a fascinating and exciting thing, and reading such an immediate and dynamic fictional treatment of it was terrific. Elma is such a wonderful character - intelligent, driven, yet complex and fallible. I loved the way Kowal incorporates Elma's Jewish religious and cultural practices. I also admired the deft way Kowal handles the sexism and racism of the 1950s and how the altered conditions of this version of the 1950s affect that bigotry.
by Mary Robinette Kowal
This alternate history of the space race is told from the point of view of Elma York, a NASA computer and former WASP pilot. After a meteorite obliterates part of the east coast and kicks off a process of rapid catastrophic climate change, the space race kicks into high gear because humanity needs to establish off-world colonies before Earth becomes uninhabitable. Elma's work, and that of her husband, an engineer, involves her very directly in the development of space travel. As her desire to participate more directly in the missions grows, Elma soon begins to question why only men are allowed to become astronauts. Her drive to become an astronaut has the force to overcome both internal and external hurdles.
I really enjoyed this book. Space exploration is already such a fascinating and exciting thing, and reading such an immediate and dynamic fictional treatment of it was terrific. Elma is such a wonderful character - intelligent, driven, yet complex and fallible. I loved the way Kowal incorporates Elma's Jewish religious and cultural practices. I also admired the deft way Kowal handles the sexism and racism of the 1950s and how the altered conditions of this version of the 1950s affect that bigotry.
